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Duane Rankin: National title for Auburn in 2014 might already be a lost cause

Duane Rankin, Montgomery Advertiser 5:06 p.m. CDT May 9, 2014

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Auburn coach Gus Malzahn will try to do something that hasn't been done in the 21st Century -- lead a team to a win in the national title game after losing in the game the previous year.(Photo: AMANDA SOWARDS/ADVERTISER Amanda Sowards/Advertiser)Buy Photo

The Tigers finished 12-2, won the SEC and were seconds away from pulling off the biggest turnaround ever in college football and winning the national title under Gus Malzahn.

So Auburn is working this spring with the mindset of finishing what they started a year after going 3-9.

"Just going to the big show and not really getting the task done," Auburn senior cornerback Jonathon Mincy said. "That's something that's going to continue to stay with me until we get back to that point and hopefully win the whole thing."

History is not on their side, though.

It's been more than a decade since a team came back from losing the national title game to winning it the next year. Florida State lost to top-ranked Tennessee, 23-16, in the 1999 Fiesta Bowl. The next year, the Seminoles beat Virginia Tech in the 2000 Sugar Bowl to finish undefeated and win it all.

Since then, only Oklahoma and Ohio State made it back to the title game after losing it the previous year. The Sooners were battered by USC, 55-19, in the 2005 Orange Bowl a year after falling to LSU, 21-14, in the Sugar Bowl.

The Buckeyes came back after losing to Florida, 41-14, in the first BCS title game in 2007 only to fall to LSU, 38-24, the second BCS title game.

Here's a year-by-year look at how the losing team has fared the next year in the BCS era.

1999: Tennessee 23, Florida State 16. Next year: Seminoles (12-0) beat Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl to win the national championship.

The two teams that made it back to the title game and lost weren't from the SEC.

So if a team from any league can break this trend, it would be one from the best conference in college football.

The last time a team came back from losing to national title game to winning it the following season was in the first two years of the BCS. So it would be ironic that in the first year of the College Football Playoff that Auburn would do the same thing Florida State did.

Then again, Auburn will have to either win the SEC or go 11-1 with the loss being to an undefeated SEC team that made it to the title game and win the national semifinals just to get a second shot at making amends.

In the first week of spring practice, Auburn sounds up to that lofty challenge.

"We're hungry," Auburn senior safety Jermaine Whitehead said. "We know we're the hunted this year. A lot of guys are going to come after us. We just want to make a statement and live up to the expectations."

(Duane Rankin is an Advertiser sports writer and columnist. He can be reached at dmrankin@gannett.com and followed on Twitter at @DuaneRankin).